Proctoring a Placement Exam and Insights from a Double Session

I have a few minutes this morning. I had the “opportunity” this morning to wake up early and come to school to watch a bunch of eighth graders take our entrance exams. I will be honest, it seems like yesterday Kelly and Lindsay were doing the same thing. Time passes, as do we.

I did an interesting double last night. This is my easy week, so I did a five minute VO2 Max (Viking Warrior Protocol 15/15) with just the 16 kilo Kettlebell. Then, I tested something. For the RKC II, I have to do a pullup with a 24 k hanging from my foot. So, to prep that, I do lots and lots of simple pullups, never to max, never swing, never kipping, pure “Pavel Approved” pullups.

For the first time, I nailed it. Dozens of pullups over a few months allowed me to make this happen. Then, last night, Bikram Yoga. An odd combination, VO2 Max plus Pullups plus Yoga for many, but for me, it is what I need.

There’s the rub: everybody wants to glow the sunlight with their strengths. I know that: give me the Weights for Distance and the Discus! But, it is the weaknesses that define your “Circle.” The bigger your circle, the more you can do. Most people just want to do “this:” a small dot of things you are good at doing. As you push your circle wider, you learn, as the sages (Socrates and Einstein) said, the more you find out what you are doing poorly. If you go to the gym with your pals three days a week and do the same things all the time, you will never experience the “what you don’t know/what you do poorly.”

I had a student go to a huge local gym and do Front Squats. An advanced lifter asked him: “what’s that work?” Small circle. At Bikram, I find that I have a locked up left hip, terrible flexibilty in my hamstrings and psoas and, well, everything. My pullup work taught me that I still am behind the curve on pullups!